Perhaps they suffer from no
such temptations.
CHAPTER XV: THE SUPERNATURAL IN FICTION
It is a truism that the supernatural in fiction should, as a general
rule, be left in the vague. In the creepiest tale I ever read, the
horror lay in this--_there was no ghost_! You may describe a ghost with
all the most hideous features that fancy can suggest--saucer eyes, red
staring hair, a forked tail, and what you please--but the reader only
laughs. It is wiser to make as if you were going to describe the
spectre, and then break off, exclaiming, "But no! No pen can describe,
no memory, thank Heaven, can recall, the horror of that hour!" So
writers, as a rule, prefer to leave their terror (usually styled "The
Thing") entirely in the dark, and to the frightened fancy of the student.
Thus, on the whole, the treatment of the supernaturally terrible in
fiction is achieved in two ways, either by actual description, or by
adroit suggestion, the author saying, like cabmen, "I leave it to
yourself, sir." There are dangers in both methods; the description, if
attempted, is usually overdone and incredible: the suggestion is apt to
prepare us too anxiously for something that never becomes real, and to
leave us disappointed.
Examples of both methods may be selected from poetry and prose. The
examples in verse are rare enough; the first and best that occurs in the
way of suggestion is, of course, the mysterious lady in "Christabel.
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